The completed 5,000 page report of the Bloody Sunday inquiry will be kept under lock and key until after the general election, the Guardian has been told.

Lord Saville, chairman of the inquiry, was ready to hand it over to Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland Secretary, on 22 March. However, the inquiry said Woodward wanted to take advice from officials "in order that he may be satisfied that publication will not jeopardise national security or the human rights of any individual".

In response to concern expressed by the families of those killed or wounded by British paratroopers on Bloody Sunday, the officials checked the draft report in the inquiry's premises, not in the Northern Ireland Office. The officials included members of MI5 but not any of the soldiers' legal representatives, Woodward said.

He added in a Commons written statement last month: "Publication of the report has been long-awaited and it promises to be a hugely significant event in Northern Ireland's history."

The report has to be presented to parliament. It is now clear there is insufficient time for the report to be printed and distributed before the Commons is dissolved, sources said yesterday.

The report into the killing of 13 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry on 30 January in 1972 has taken 12 years to complete and the inquiry has cost nearly £200m.

The inquiry is expected to severely criticise the soldiers for firing at groups of marchers and for the claims they made in statements afterwards to the military police.

It is also expected to criticise some of their commanders. One question it is likely to address is whether the soldiers also heard one or two shots aimed at them.